8.) Grand Central

For the daft kids in us all

The crowds were split off and segmented into even groups, archipelagos in the sea competing for relevance, loners like broken ships against the quickening tide. In one group I saw a ruddy man sighing in protest, arguing without rest to make his point heard. Every reasoned utterance was met with derision and amusement from the rest as they soaked into the membranous gatherings of people, browsing not buying, walking in slowly decreasing circles to a stand-still. The man did not fault them and I walk on by and realise he is saying nothing at all.

A woman hunches her shoulder and stalks wide but someone strides right to her. She darts aside and he does not look back, but seems apologetic. It’s like a metaphor for life, really: you try to move on your path, stay out of people’s way, but some dull-eyed fucker’s got to have their say.

What’s a light that obscures? I break my teeth chewing over this riddle. My friends’ laughter has become pale. They all understand and joke but I look on, confused and unmoored. What is a light that obscures?

The sea level has been elongating in secret.

The homeless’ plight has grown too heavy for the streets and people duck away under the display boards, never to be heard from again. There are a lot more people here than you would think. Police lug rifles into a siege but never arrive at their destination. The throne is teetering over a precipice, riven in twain from ruptures in history. No-one notices. They try to act like rubber rings are halos that you leave at home. The waves of the ocean are converging and tutting and not looking where they’re going, for fuck’s sake. Probably should have kept your rubber rings handy. A mass drowning grins in the lobby.

The sea level has been elongating in secret.

Grand Central has a congestion problem that no-one is willing to talk about. HS2 might not necessarily be the answer. Still we dig trenches until our hands are needed again like we were told they would be. 100 trades remain but let us not be known as people who don’t build anymore.

Underground, though, that’s where you get to see who you really are. It’s only painful if you resist this insight. The water-stained platforms are slippy but if you stay true and make your train, nothing else matters. The student revellers jive and dance, never dithering in the underground. They know who they are. Businessmen stride to the gaps between the trains and the platforms, secreting themselves away. They know what they want. The gaps have been filled by businessmen because no-one’s heard of artists for a while. They say they have been buried under trees of glass. No one person admits who the “they” is. But the students know where they’re going. What about you? Are you 3 years too early or too late for your train? Electric dreams are near silent as they sidle on by. What seeds can you sow under this concrete jungle?

“Platform one, to Grand Central, the centrepiece of the world, wrought metal reflecting injustice for all. It is the silvery monolith, a cave of steel built to withstand anything, even our brutal history.”

Even if the sea level has been elongating, you can make it, somehow. Take a train away from here before something else takes you.

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